four days until americans cast their ballots for either president obama or governor mitt romney but will it be a fair election un monitors are set to be deployed here in the u.s. to keep an eye on voting but some officials are threatening to arrest monitors if they show up at polling places in their state details just ahead. and when americans head to the polls next tuesday some will be voting in the aftermath of hurricane sandy will the storm's damage change the way voters cast their ballots and could lingering power outages keep some people from voting altogether. and friend or foe wells fargo is a bank the bank is trying to woo the latino community but in a new report it looks like the bank offers efforts to invest in the prison system

as well which has an interest in locking up latinos here in the u.s. illegally r t dives into the issue in just a minute. it's friday november second i'm meghan lopez in washington d.c. and you're watching r.t. . all right well election day is just four days away and the anticipation for the moment is hanging in the air in a short time the power will shift away from the hands of the government and back into the hands of the people where they will decide once and for all which direction they want this country to head already people are casting early voting ballots president obama of course made election history by being the first president to cast an early vote. but rampant allegations over voter fraud and voter suppression have cast a shadow of doubt over the fairness of this election as

a result the u.n. affiliated group of international auditors called the organization for security and cooperation in europe has sent in the election monitor of forty four election monitors to be accurate to the u.s. to oversee this process and this has officials in two states upset very upset so much so that texas attorney general greg abbott and iowa secretary of state met schultz are actually threatening to subject the monitors to criminal prosecutions if they're found within one hundred feet of a polling station but why are these state officials so afraid of international oversight to ensure a fair and democratic election process joining me with some of the answers is r t correspondent. hey there ana stasia so let's first go ahead and tell me you about this group and why it's so important for them to monitor not only u.s. elections but elections internationally megan the organization for security and

cooperation in europe is a very well known international organization it's a regional organization for the united nations and it's known to monitor elections all throughout the world and this is serious sleep primarily though one of the first groups that the united states turns to what it's looking for opinions of monitors when it comes to international and foreign elections so the o.s.c. is a major group that travels around the. monitoring elections everywhere and traditionally for years now if for example the o.s.c. says that there's some discrepancy that they noticed in an election abroad the united states you can be certain will be the first country to start screaming about how all my god this organization this big international group is discovering these and discrepancies and fraud yet when it comes to the us itself first of all the united states is a member of the o. a c. it invites the o. a c. to participate here and we've heard from some of these governors say that of course the always sees welcome please come and monitor elections but if you try to get

close to the polling stations as close as a couple hundred yards you're going to be arrested so it's really not clear exactly how this double standard is supposed to apply because the us technically should and does allow international observers and yet in these. swing state iowa in the swing state of ohio and in texas of course like you mention these observers are now facing a major problem so it's really not clear exactly what kind of role they're intending to intended to play in the united states when being treated like this it's you know really a great example of double standards and on a saucy i just piggybacking off of what you just said i want to pull up a quote that is actually from the u.s. oh a c e website it says the united states strongly supports the work of the o.s.c. e. it went on to say that the o.s.c. is unique among international organizations in the acceptance by participating states of the principle that open societies built on human rights and democracy are

a necessary component of true security so on one hand we have this document and others on their website saying we support everything that this organization stands for and that's why we are part of it along with sixty fifty six other member states on the other hand we have people within the us saying we don't need you here we don't want you here can you kind of explain this discrepancy well let me give you know these words human rights and democracy there are. lete cute notions but when it comes to applying them in reality the problem is that they do not always work out like this in the united states and we've seen this this is really the perfect example of that yes the united states of course respects the o.s.c. on paper yes it's for human rights and democracy but when it comes to real situations on the ground where we have state governors saying we're just going to arrest you and prosecute you if you come into our polling stations there's really not much these monitors can do and we have to keep in mind the this war and monitors it's really ridiculous because what we're talking about here is because

it's only a couple dozen always see monitors coming to the united states so we're really talking about you know literally one or two monitor in a state so it's really not that big a deal it's just an extra pair of eyes making sure everything goes right so why these states are putting up this enormous fight as should be because certain especially when it comes to swing states such as is the case with ohio and iowa and on the south the i do want to ask you about the job of these voting monitors i mean when we get down to the real dirty jurisdiction here what jurisdiction if any do they have in calling out voter fraud in sovereign elections and what can they really change in this process well what they can change is bring attention to the fraud that takes place on the violations that take place on election day but we here in our team have been reporting time and again that one of the major problems in this election as was the case in the two previous ones is the electronic voting machines that are being used across the u.s. and the problem there is for

a human being to be able to observe how the election is playing out and exactly what kind of violations take place they need to be able to witness the process of the actual ballots being cast and the result that that ballot being counted as and the problem of the electronic voting machines of course is you cannot physically look into what this machine is recording so this is just yet another detail really a major one. how it's so increasingly complicated if not impossible as many experts say for these observers to really be able to carry out their job and i have to say it's not just international observers who although they are being given the hardest treatment but foreign observers to their job is pretty complicated this time around as was the case in the other elections and on a stasi i have to ask you the people that are throwing the biggest fuss about these u.n. . observers are republicans you have the secretary of state matt scholtz

you have a texas attorney attorney general who's also opposed to it you've got people in the congress congressman connie mack of florida is also against it all of these people are republican do you think it's something to do with party politics or is this something they're saying hey just stay out of our elections a lot of stu our thing i think it's both megan the reason here seems to be you know republicans in general do have a much more aggressive stance towards international cooperation as we know and this doesn't just apply to monitors being president polling stations but many foreign policy issues so this is just really seems to be reflective of that general trend of the republican party but also we've been bringing attention to the fact that many of the even electronic voting machines that we're talking about the companies that that provide them are very closely affiliated with the republican party so a lot of experts and analysts we've interviewed over the last several months say

that there could be a much stronger link than there than some people may assume and on a safiya we do know that u.n. monitors have recently observed elections in countries like ukraine the czech republic russia montenegro georgia. france and greece i mean in belarus for instance these monitors condemned the election as neither free nor fair but they really have some type of result in the end they have in effect well. you know megan we have to say that the u.s.c. does have its own history really of criticism in terms of some of the conclusions it sometimes makes depending on the countries where it's monitoring where their group is monitoring the election and there have been cases previously where concerns from other monitors said look there seems to be a little bit more let's say loud screams of trying to bring attention to certain violations in one country yet a lot more relaxed approach when it comes to others and i think this latest case with the united states is a good example of this because we've heard from the o.s.c.

say they think it's unacceptable that monitors are not being able to do their job but there is really it's quite unlikely that this group is going to put up a much bigger fight because it has kind of a history of being a little more kind of attentive to what the united states needs are in comparison to maybe some of the other countries that you listed when it comes to monitoring and outlining some of the concerns they have on the ground that take place there and what we do know is that they're only planning on sending about forty four people over here that's just a small drop in the bucket they couldn't possibly make it to every single polling station across the nation but you know they could at least of serve it maybe if they can get in some states are saying that's perfectly fine president obama and his administration supports it but some states are actually the swing states that many say can swing by just four thousand votes are the ones that are saying no on a saucy a chair kind of arty correspondent thank you for joining us sir. and with less than one hundred hours to go the countdown to election night continues but when you had

to the ballot box on tuesday don't be surprised when you see the names on the election ballots other than president obama and mitt romney there are many more candidates that are vying for a spot of the commander in chief position that may not be getting the same amount of coverage from the mainstream on maryland's ballot for instance there are twenty names among those are hopefuls like libertarian party nominee gary johnson and green party candidate dr jill stein they'll be going head to head live at nine pm right here on our team in our studio next monday november fifth as part of the free and equal foundation second round of third party debates as you may recall our team is a host of and a host of other organizations aired the first round which included the constitution parties virgil goode and the justice party's president. pick rocky anderson the debate will also feature the pre-debate panel at eight pm the full of notable

journalists and is hosted by the big pictures tom hartman tom will be joined by sam seeder amber lyon martha allison and matt welch so as the tight race between president obama and republican nominee mitt romney makes its final push to the electorial finish line tune in right here to our t.v. in order to get the latest news that you won't find on the mainstream news. well as the water levels begin to recede from the superstorm known as sandy the question remains whether the franken storm will have a lingering effect on the other major force coming ahead on tuesday the elections are t r t's laurie harshness took to the streets of brooklyn to see what new yorkers had to say about this. new york with his. hard by hurricane sandy will it affect the way new yorkers vote

or the way they look at the issues this week let's talk about that i was a county alan or sixty four and i see every day so if you see water. water everywhere the beach was in the street people should know by now. was cool when this type of storm comes so how to build a house a lot of people build a house fred know is not an honest all happen every couple years whatever you got to do to see it and now it's happening more morning crazy climate change events start building even stronger and how did this storm change your mind about any of the issues like climate change or anything like that how stupid the guy was compared obama in terms of what was he gain can. name romney romney why is he gathering cans of food for people it was said about we don't need can build a wall or are you going to vote on tuesday is that no let me tell you something.

the city could have been wiped away if the voting polls still say i have to be there a lot to knock on get on vocals or for saying people lost their homes or their houses and their life savings i knew i wanted to know if i lost my home and life seems to on me you frustrating thinking about what you know you think about what am i going to do you know do you think the government has handled the storm well you know how could they have done better they could have gotten the subway running a lot quicker but you think that they have anything to do with how much water down there is no i think they're just really slow to respond i mean the whole thing with the buses over here is ridiculous and it's unconstitutional that you have to have three people in a car has reacted to it it seems to be getting out and about and romney seemed to be out on the truck while they were still trying to pull a large together yes so do you think that obama's looking better than romney right now do you i think. mitt romney is a much bigger natural disaster than hurricane sandy and i hope people realize that

vote for obama you don't think there's anything wrong with obama i think there's plenty wrong in terms of his. foreign policy in the mideast but unfortunately he's the lesser evil the bottom line is this has been a tough time for new york city and most of us are looking forward to putting this hurricane and the election behind us. all right well still ahead on r t wells fargo is trying to become a friendly bank with the latino community but are they a friend or a foe a new report looks at banks investments and prisons and the connections to the latino community more when we come back.

we both agree we agree we need to bring the tax rates down i felt the same as the president did. you agree let's go back to something the president i agree on and the two of you agree that the voters have a choice perhaps that's you wonder who to vote for when romney and obama agree on so many things remember you do have other options come november sixth tune in to see the second round of debates between the major third party candidates right here on our team.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about you sir are a fool you know what that is my terrorist cells in your neighborhood all want to keep us safe to featuring me on live from the christian point you. can see your beliefs about the. sopranos over here distracts us from what you and i should care

about because their profit driven industry that sells us sensationalistic garbage because that breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break this that it's. six. six six six six six. wells fargo is america's fourth largest bank but according to a new report part of the growth strategy for the bank has been investing in corporations that make money imprisoning members of its target customer base let's tino's a new report from national people's action and the public accountability initiative cleverly titled jails fargo gives evidence that the bank is trying to have it both ways for at least a decade wells fargo executives have touted latino customers as a strong segment of their business strategy including target advertisements and

look latino community outreach for instance according to the report wells fargo processed one point eight billion dollars in remittances in two thousand and eleven now this seems like good stuff but what none of the latino directed advertisements say is that wells fargo funds the private into private prison industry companies like the geo group the corrections corporation of america and management and training corporation so what do these things have to do with one another well to explain the connection between wells fargo's latino community and the private prison industry we're now joined by axel caballero he's the founder of when sammy. hagar axel thank you so much for joining us so can you first start off by explaining the connection between the private prison industry and the latino community. definitely well first of all thank you megan for having me on and the connection between the latino community and the private prison industry is one that has started pretty much as we saw the surge of s b ten seventy and copycat laws

around the country where they were detaining immigrants and sending them to private prison facilities and immigration detention facilities and turning a profit based on contract sometimes up to two hundred dollars a night per immigrant detain and these facilities obviously the two largest ones are the geo group as well as corp america which has profit in the five billion dollar amount a year between both combined that's a drag link and they actually report after report says that they actually lobbied to have those anti immigrant last pass because they need immigrants to fill those detentions in order to turn a profit great axle and now the report left some service says of wells fargo offers to let you know customers well site offers an advertising geared toward hispanics they're accepting that take a lot of meticulous of course identification cards issued to formal foreign

national partnerships with latin latino community groups and remittance services so can you explain a little bit all of these services including the meticulous and why they are so bad or so hypocritical. first of all we have to understand that the marketing tactics that wells fargo has done the last few years are very very directed to latino community because they know that the base is very important for their ultimate goal which is profits they know that there's a customer mase base there and we're talking about a strong portion of immigrants in this country that send money back home and they use services like wells fargo to do so now that is very cynical and hypocritical because the same company that is providing the services are making a profit on that and it's also investing in ownership of stocks of c.c.a. and geo group as well as funding lines of credits to these corporations and they're making a profit by incarcerating the same people that they're making a profit in allowed to send money back home it is

a cyclical thing and it is very cynical that now they're moving to this marketing campaign fight it is there or knowledge is power i'm your friend these are very cynical approaches to be honest and really the latino community is starting to wake up and say listen you know you can take a two pronged approach with you know toggles directly and tell us exactly what's going on and act like you have to ask you though with these incentives like meticulous lika and they have by the way are the first of banks to ever accept not take with us and also the reminiscences doesn't actually make sense for the latino community to pull out when they're offering so many things to do help the community . it does make sense and here's why first because it is a strong message that we need to send to wells fargo that well these services would promote a better understanding of how latinos are using the banking services you can do

that and at the same time use the profit for the different modes you can do that in the same time that the other and incarcerate immigrants and basically also with lending practices for example we just see in the lawsuit in new york that they are being sued for mortgage fraud you can't really as a company expect that the latino community is going to be by your side and offer supposedly beneficial services like might think well as which are. consular that they can show to you know to particularly open a bank account or to send money back home. and then the same time know that you are profiting from the mystery that comes with the incarceration and the separation of families in private prisons but actual i do have to push back just a little bit and we don't want to play devil's advocate here for just a second and ask you it kind of sounds to me like what well fargo is saying by supporting both the latino community as well as the crack down or crack down on the

communities by supporting private prison industry is that they're supporting legal immigrants to use and their services they're encouraging and they're making it easier what there aren't supporting is illegal immigrants coming in here and abusing the system allegedly so kind of connect that because i am trying to draw a difference between these illegal immigrants that are using wells fargo and illegal immigrants that they're locking up by supporting the private prisons. well it's interesting that you mention that because of two reasons first you know we're burning a lot of the actions and proto that we have taken on through our immigrants for sale campaign directed at wells fargo they kept saying that their policy is or that you know our approach to it should be directed at the federal government and the immigration authorities well then don't take your stance on dividing immigrants into two categories that's number one and number two it is absolutely

a farce that they are really making that distinction because they're taking money from undocumented immigrants it's well documented immigrants they you know when you send money back home you don't actually need to prove or show anything new you can just be an immigrant here use their services and take money back home like you would with western union they care about fraud that's the bottom line it is a profit it is not about immigration policy and so what we need to do is tell been that bad profit comes with the prize and that prize and the latino community support. but absolutely just ask you once again from the purely business standpoint the hispanic community is the second fastest growing asian americans just. this year so there's money to be made in appealing to that community and there's also money to be made in appealing to the private prison industries they are in fact a cash cow it's a multibillion dollar industry at this point but we already know that ethics is an afterthought for businesses like this i mean look at the mortgage crisis for

instance so from a strictly business standpoint it does make sense does it not to invest in bulbs. that is where we have the bottom line right where business practices become problematic and when they become abusive and what we believe is that wells fargo business practices have become abusive and that is one and they are trying to cord latino support and particularly latino business you can on the other side say well yeah i'll take your money but also put you in prison i'll take your money but also take your home i'll take your money but i also separate your families that is absolutely what is the problem right now that we're seeing in this country is that businesses just have a bottom line which is trough it and that profit comes at the expense of real people and real lives that are being affected by bad greed that is driving these policies within wells fargo and what we do know is that wells fargo is cutting down its investments and groups like geo group they cut down the seventy five percent in

the last year since two thousand and eleven so maybe they're moving in the right direction for your group and for the latinos to be satisfied founder of course i thank you so much for joining us thank you so much for having me. all right capital account is up next on our t let's check in with lauren less certain see what's on today's agenda hey lauren hi there megan so i'm sure you saw i don't know if your point on it but jobs numbers are out for last month and you know i have to say this is not a bad report more jobs added them were expected the unemployment rate inched up a notch but south because more people entered the labor force again which is a good thing you want people trying to find work and getting into the labor force but we're going to look at of course it's not all good there their wages to look at and those have not been on the rise not like we would want so we'll talk about that coming up in a couple minutes here all right thanks lauren and that's coming up next on our t.v. but best going to do it for the news from one of the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america check out our web site r t dot com slash usa and follow me on twitter at

meghan underscore lopez see evac your soon. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. of.

me is me. to eat.